5 Biggest Obstacles Facing the San Francisco 49ers in 2015

The San Francisco 49ers struggled last season, falling to an 8-8 record after reaching three straight NFC Championship games. This was followed by a general cleaning of house, with the coaching staff fired and replaced, and players from all over the roster bounced—be it from leaving in free agency or from retirement.

The optimist/s view is that so many bad things happened to the 49ers last season in terms of injuries and off-field turmoil, that some bounce back is to be expected. The team’s raw talent, even with the loss of so many players, is better than that of your average 8-8 team, so without as many bad breaks, the team could return to competitiveness this season.

This article is not for the optimists.

Today, we’re looking at the five biggest obstacles facing the 49ers in 2015. Honestly, with so many players gone, it was hard whittling it down to just five, and I ended up having to combine problems just to fit it onto the list.

Just because an obstacle exists doesn’t mean it can’t be overcome, but these are five significant issues the 49ers are going to have to figure out their way around if they want to return to the playoffs after a one-year absence.

5. Travel

David J. Phillip/Associated Press

Being situated on the West Coast, the 49ers always get a short stick when it comes to the sheer distance of road trips they have to go on, but their 2015 total is rather ridiculous.

The 49ers are slated to travel 27,998 miles in 2015—the most of any team. That includes four trips of 2,000 miles or more: at Pittsburgh in Week 2, at the New York Giants in Week 5, at Cleveland in Week 14 and at Detroit in Week 16. Those four trips also lead the league.

What’s amazing about this fact is not the sheer number of miles traveled, but the fact that they are first despite the NFL holding three games in London this year. The Miami Dolphins end up having to travel nine times because they’ve given up one of their home games to “host” the London matchup, and they still end up with more than 1,000 miles less than the 49ers will have to travel.

The 49ers can reduce their total mileage somewhat if they opt to remain on the road between the road games at Chicago and Cleveland in December, but no matter how you slice it, the 49ers were not blessed by the schedule algorithm.

Even their divisional rivals get off relatively easy—Seattle, for instance, has the fourth-most travel in 2015, but they only have one 2,000+ mile trip, to Baltimore in Week 13. They get to face Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit at home, and their NFC East road trip is to Dallas instead of New York. Despite being the most isolated NFL team—with only two opponents within 1,000 miles—the Seahawks still end up with less travel than San Francisco does.

It’s a well-studied effect that travel hampers West Coast teams, with greater travel leading to greater struggles. While there are techniques teams can use to lower these effects—leaving earlier to reduce jet lag or simply winning enough games to get things moved to primetime, where the effects tend to diminish—it’s still a significant hurdle for teams to overcome. No team will have to overcome the travel hurdle more than the 49ers will next season.

4. Colin Kaepernick’s Development

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

There’s no doubting that Kaepernick took a step backward in 2014. His completion percentage, touchdown percentage, yards per attempt and quarterback rating were all the lowest in his career as a starter, and his interceptions and sack total were the highest in his NFL career.

You can point a lot of fingers at reasons surrounding Kaepernick to explain the drop-offs. His offensive line suffered massive injuries, and the lack of continuity lowered the overall level of play. Vernon Davis seemed to turn into a pumpkin overnight, suffering through injuries and being utterly ineffective when he was on the field. The offensive play-calling was suspect, and didn’t play to Kaepernick’s strengths.

At the end of the day, though, the great quarterbacks can overcome problems like this to play at least decently. Kaepernick had some utter nightmares of games in 2014—a two-interception, 121-yard game against Seattle, a two-interception, 174-yard game against Oakland and things of that nature. Every player has bad games, but Kaepernick looked simply lost out there at times.

“At times” was the operative phrase, of course. Kaepernick had some impressive games last season as well, and there were times when his combination of athleticism and arm strength exhibited themselves, making him look like the same quarterback that was so effective in 2012 and 2013. This wasn’t a Blake Bortles situation where you have to write-off the entire season. Kaepernick still exhibited skills; what the team needs to do is find ways to design the offense to maximize what Kaepernick does well and minimize the things he does poorly.

If they can do that, Kaepernick should be alright. When I looked for comparable players to Kaepernick’s last few seasons, names like Ben Roethlisberger and Steve McNair hit the top of the list. One bad season does not a career make.

If they can’t do that, and Kaepernick follows in the footsteps of comparable players like Kyle Orton or Jason Campbell, the 49ers will not be contenders in 2015, and Kaepernick will not be the starting quarterback in 2016.

3. A New, Unknown Coaching Staff

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

Whether or not you believe Jim Harbaugh wore out his welcome in San Francisco, the fact is that he had massive amounts of success in his time there. Harbaugh has the fifth-highest winning percentage in NFL history among coaches with 50 or more games behind only Guy Chamberlain, John Madden, Vince Lombardi and George Allen. His 44-19-1 record was the best record among any active coach in 2014, and being 25 games above .500 in only four seasons is an impressive feat, as well.

Also gone are both coordinators, with Vic Fangio ending up in Chicago and Greg Roman ending up in Buffalo. It will be tempting for 49ers fans to look at the University of Michigan’s overall record, the Bills’ offensive statistics and the Bears’ defensive statistics and compare them to the 49ers’ own performance in those areas.

That’s a lot of experience to replace in one offseason. Rather than hire an experienced name or a hot prospect, however, the 49ers stayed in-house, promoting Jim Tomsula, Geep Chryst and Eric Mangini up to the top three coaching spots.

This, understandably, did not precisely ignite the fanbase.

Geep Chryst’s record as an offensive coordinator? Just 9-23, with the team never ranking above 26^th in yards or points. Some of that can be blamed on having to work with Ryan Leaf and an end-of-career Jim Harbaugh, but it’s not exactly the highlight of a resume.

Eric Mangini’s record as a defensive coordinator? A much better 10-6, but they ranked 26^th in yards allowed themselves. His record as a head coach is worse, as he’s sputtered to a 33-47 career record in New York and Cleveland.

Jim Tomsula’s record as a coordinator? None, as he’s been promoted directly from a position coach to the top job without ever spending time running a defense in the NFL.

It’s no wonder that Tomsula regularly shows up at the bottom of head coaching rankings—he has essentially no comparable experience, with only a brief head coaching stint in the defunct NFL Europe to compare to.

Just because Tomsula doesn’t have experience doesn’t mean he will be a bad coach, it just means that people are right to be skeptical of him when compared to more established candidates.

It is worth noting, however, that Tomsula is tied for the best win-loss record in NFL history among coaches with at least one game coached, as he’s 1-0. If he can remain close to the top of that particular list, the 49ers will do just fine.

For the record, the best win-loss record of a coach with at least 17 games coached is Elgie Tobin’s 16-3-4 record with the Akron Pros in 1920 and 1921. Tomsula will need to go 14-2 to stay atop that particular statistic, which seems unlikely, at best.

2. A Tough Division

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The 49ers would be a lot better off if they were playing in the NFC West of 2010 rather than the one of 2015.

The Seattle Seahawks might still be the best team in football and were one poorly-executed play away from winning back-to-back Super Bowl titles. The Arizona Cardinals may have been squeaking by on magic sauce and pixie dust when you consider just how many close games they were able to win, but that’s still a team that went 11-5 despite losing multiple starting quarterbacks. Even the worst team in the division, the St. Louis Rams, played the 49ers close twice last season and boasts one of the best front-sevens in the league—and they’ve upgraded at quarterback, as well.

Odds Shark reports that the Seahawks are currently at 9-2 to win the Super Bowl, the Cardinals are at 25-1, and the Rams are at 33-1. Every other division has at least one weak team in it; the NFC West has no weak link.

Every single one of San Francisco’s six divisional games should be a tough matchup. That’s tough for a team in transition to deal with, even if you think the transition will ultimately be successful.

1. Too Much Roster Turnover

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

There are plenty of new faces in camp.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before—the 49ers have lost a lot of talent from last season.

The good news is, the 49ers have replacements in mind for each and every significant player they’ve lost:

• Guard Mike Iupati will most likely be replaced by second-year player Brandon Thomas.
• Wide receiver Michael Crabtree will be replaced by free-agent acquisition Torrey Smith.
• Running back Frank Gore will be replaced by second-year player Carlos Hyde and free-agent acquisition Reggie Bush.
• Third and fourth receivers Brandon Lloyd and Stevie Johnson will likely be replaced by Bruce Ellington and Quinton Patton.
• Offensive tackles Anthony Davis and Jonathan Martin will be replaced by some combination of Alex Boone, Marcus Martin, Erik Pears and/or Trent Brown.
• Cornerbacks Perrish Cox and Chris Culliver will be replaced by either free agent Shareece Wright or one of the plethora of second-year players the 49ers drafted in 2014.
• Defensive ends Justin Smith and Ray McDonald will be replaced by a rotation including Darnell Dockett, Tank Carradine and Quinton Dial.
• Linebackers Patrick Willis and Chris Borland will be replaced by NaVorro Bowman and Michael Wilhoite.
• Punter Andy Lee will be replaced by rookie Bradley Pinion.

That’s at least a decent succession plan for each and every player the 49ers have lost since the 2014 season, but the sheer number of moving parts that need to be replaced is still daunting.

The odds that all the replacements will fail to live up to expectations are low, but so are the odds that all of them will succeed. In all likelihood, a number of these moves will result in downgrades.

Maybe Brandon Thomas isn’t ready to step into the starting lineup. Maybe Carlos Hyde won’t explode as a second-year player. Maybe NaVorro Bowman’s knee isn’t fully healed. Maybe none of the cornerbacks step up and really earns a starting role.

The sheer number of “maybes” that need to go right for the 49ers to return to being one of the top teams in the NFL is a daunting list. While each plan, taken individually, has potential and probably will work out, the odds that so many replacements for key players could succeed simultaneously are low indeed. That, more than anything else, is the biggest obstacle between the 49ers and success in 2015.

Bryan Knowles is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, covering the Carolina Panthers. Follow him @BryKno on twitter.